Atlus vs. Progressives
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I recently stumbled upon a video by one of those twitter anime youtubers, now most time I would just click not interested, but the thumbnail caught me. It was discussing if Persona (at least in modern form) is trans/homophobic. The guy dismissed it and just gave a few fuck yous and moved on without reading the thread. But as a fairly big Atlus fan I was curious. P4 is my favorite game of all time. So I found the video at the end of the thread. And some somewhat valid points, even if slightly exaggerated, were made. Tell me what you think.

(I was actually thinking of making an Atlus community as well so tell me if you would join that.)

(The guy also claims to be a “centrist” in the video but modern day he seems to be more ancommy. I liked his video on vtubers and he seems fairly left there.)

  • Ratette (she/her)@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    2 years ago

    @TheKanzler@lemmygrad.ml and I would join an Atlus community as I’m sure others would.

    Are Altus homophobic? I don’t think that’s as cut and dry as a YouTube video essay would like. They’ve definitely had elements of homophobia in both 4’s development cycle cutting the potentially gay romance and the portrayal of gay men in P5 when they hit on Ryuji.

    But is it Atlus that are homophobic or is it Japanese culture? I’d argue it’s both and one is because the other but not in the same way. Japan despite their openness regarding sex etc are still so reactionary and homophobic, I think it says something about Atlus that they considered a gay romance option in P4 but says even more about the wider Japanese culture and the company that they walked it back and scrapped it for whatever justification.

    I’m of the opinion that Atlus want to be progressive but within that environment are inevitably bound by the culture that persists and as a capitalist company can’t/won’t push too hard for fear of backlash and loss of sales. It is what it is under capitalism.

    I still like Atlus purely because when comparing them to literally most game developers/publishers in Japan they are leagues ahead of the curve and compared to most mainstream companies in the west are doing bette than most, they just don’t get a free pass from me or my “queer ally seal of approval” (like that means anything lmao) but then frankly no main game companies hit that standard bar indie devs for the most part.

    This is less an answer and more here’s what I think because frankly I won’t pretend to know the details. This whole comment is based on stuff I’ve read, heard etc. I’m no expert.

    I think people like to think japan are somehow lgbtq+ positive because of anime/manga tropes like femboys and cross dressing guys but look deeper and it’s not that positive, most femboy characters are implied to be straight and even then the idea of cross dressing characters in manga/anime started because artists wanted to explore gender but couldn’t due to japans insane conservative leanings.

    Even now gender is still binary and femboys etc are seen as a joke/trope/gag tool vs a comment on gender and sexuality.

    Within a culture that’s so strict but also hypocritical I don’t think creators have the freedom to push back and given Atlus are a big money earning company vs some queer ally mangaka I don’t see them changing until it’s economically safe to do so.

    Lmao sorry for the wall of text I’m pretty drunk 😖